Where the Lines Are Broken
by Perseph
Summary: After the 2nd Battle of Hoover Dam cemented the rule of House and his Courier, Boone left without looking back. Following a string of successful mercenary jobs, he earns a reputation as a reliable hitman. But the Mojave wouldn't let him be. A job captures the hired gun's interest enough to lure him back into the thick of things and the bitter lessons learned there.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: This work takes place post-game and will feature one of Boone's bad end-game sequences.**

 **Edited 3/30/17: A hearty thank you to Alexeij for the amazing feedback on improving this story. The other chapters will be edited in the coming days as time allows.**

* * *

Prologue

 _2.13.2282_

The aftermath was always worse than the battle itself, Boone's learned. Once it's all really over there is no quiet, no stillness. Instead of the tumult of bullets and blades against dented armor and yielding flesh, there is the muffled cries and wails of the still living. There is the buzz of hundreds of flies that appeared out of nowhere and the lonely caws of carrion birds that flap away with feathers and beaks slick with blood.

It's exactly the same as it was five years ago.

The Dam walkway was stained black and crimson, viscera and gore from Legion and NCR alike stuck to the soles of his boots. Securitrons lined the perimeter, forming a cold procession that was ready to begin disposing of the bodies as soon as they received the command. After his brief conversation with the Courier, House was impatient to get the Dam completely secure.

Ahead of him Six crouches once more, tilting a nearly intact head chin-up to check it closely. A sightless blue eye gazes up at the bright, empty sky and then directly at Boone as he comes to a full stop near her, casting his shadow over the legless corpse. Only a left arm remained attached to the torso and the body was still smoldering, the stink of singed flesh rising along with the faint smoke trails into the air. The Courier had insisted on carrying her missile launcher into battle this time, her trust in the NCR eroded. It had withered up after the trio of Rangers stopped them yesterday on their way back to the Strip, carbines unholstered as they gave her a deadline to fix things. If he was being completely honest with himself, it had probably disappeared after Camp Golf.

Squinting in the harsh sun, his gut is tied in knots whenever his thoughts stray to Hanlon and the entirety of the failure of the NCR in the Mojave. His confession to sabotage his own troops was a kick in the teeth, another shaky pillar toppled in Boone's dwindling faith.

Clamping an unlit cigarette between his teeth, he aches for the burn of something strong to drown in. Or something that would let him sleep for weeks on end. He doesn't much care which.

"You still collecting ears?" he finally wonders, bone weary. They've been here too long already, the merciless mid-afternoon heat of the desert roasting the torn bodies.

"I never liked that particular practice of yours," Arcade comments as he walks over to them, a strip of a torn-up shirt wrapped over nose and mouth, same as the Courier. But even with it covering half his face, Boone can make out the scowl the doctor's shooting at Six as she straightens up.

"You've made your thoughts clear, Arcade. And no, Boone. I've got no one to turn them into, anymore," the Courier shrugs, expression stony as she pulls her gloves off to take the clipboard Arcade hands over. She doesn't elaborate, becoming absorbed in the list of Legion dead and dying, turning the sheet over and then once more before finally looking up at the doctor. "This include the ones at the Fort?"

"You said to be thorough. I even listed the mutts."

Six shakes her head, dark brows meeting together in a frown. It's the first break in the empty mask she adopted since she began going through the bodies. "I hate killing the dogs."

"But hacking an ear off a human skull is less barbaric?" Arcade lifts a brow, tone condescending.

"Not the dogs' fault slavers owned and trained 'em."

Boone snorts but remains silent. It's an eradication process; Six had always treated it so. She was ruthless when it came to the Bull despite the soft spot she held for the mongrels. He'd seen it first hand with Silus at McCarran and there had been no mercy in either of them when it came to Cottonwood or The Fort or any other Legion raid camp they'd come across in their travels. They understood each other in that respect.

But in the months since he's joined her, he's also learned that she would share with them when she wanted. Six did things her way, at her own pace and lucky for him, she'd been relentless in their hunts. But there was no forcing anything out of her if she wasn't willing. The only one who ever got a positive reaction had been Veronica, and even that wasn't the case anymore.

He shakes himself, tells himself not to dwell on it. It's none of his business who she's slept with, whether it was Benny or the prostitute at the Gomorrah. Even if Benny had ended up dead before that fateful night was over and Gomorrah had turned out to be nothing but a spell of loneliness. Something he could understand, even if he wouldn't yield to the need himself. It wasn't like he'd seen Veronica and Six disappear together, either. But the affection had been there between them, obvious, easy as nothing he'd seen in the Courier except for the brutality they shared. When she was around the Brotherhood scribe, it was like she was a different person. She was bubbly, the smiles all real and the laughter quick and easy.

"Still missing a few," Six mutters, tearing him from his thoughts. She hands the clipboard back to Arcade and slips the gloves on again, heading to the rubble of one of the observation towers. Stepping over the crumbled mess she reaches a body so covered in dust and debris, it's hard to tell which faction armor its wearing with only a black boot and a bleeding arm peeping through the broken mortar. It doesn't matter in the end, though. Legion had infiltrated the NCR more times than the brass knew. It was safe to say that whoever she was looking for could've been wearing either uniform when they died.

Boone finally tires of waiting and heads to the Fort himself. The others are hovering near the massive body of the Legate Lanius, the final bastion of the Legion felled by a Courier with no name and her misfit crew of companions.

It isn't until later that night at the Lucky 38 that he finds the Legate's punctured helm on his bed. When he questions Six about it, she gives him a glimpse of who she had been when they first met, a gleam in the whiskey brown of her eyes when she answers, "It's your birthday."

Was it? It wasn't the first time he's forgotten. But he doesn't like that she's caught him off guard with it.

The feeling must show on his face because she pipes up before he can refuse the gift. "For Carla. For what they did to her. And to you."

She slips into the master suite, shutting the door before he can think of a response.

When he packs up to go a few days later, he leaves the gift behind along with his beret. There's no need to carry any of it with him anymore.

It isn't until he's a few days out from the Mojave Outpost, heading west with no specific destination in mind, that he thinks fleetingly about not finding out who she had been looking for among the bodies that day. But like everything else rattling around in his head, he finds he doesn't care. Not anymore.


	2. Chapter 1

"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live." - Norman Cousins

* * *

Boone awakens sluggishly, entire body in pain. His head, in particular, feels like it's burning. He opens his eyes, looks at a crackling fire so close to his face his eyebrows are probably singed and his nose ready to blister.

He pulls back suddenly but bundled from the neck down in what seems to be both bedrolls, his rolling attempt is weak. Momentum works against him and he slowly rolls back to his original position, much to his frustration. A part of his body touches into the small fire pit and begins smoldering.

"Shit, Boone-!"

There's scrambling and the slip of boot-on-dirt followed by another soft curse as he is tugged back, the scent of the moldy sleeping bag burning in the night air. A few slaps on the scorched bedroll and he's surprised by his groan of pain.

"Sorry, sorry, but it's better than you burnin' alive," the Courier says, grunting as she pulls him away from the fire and over to a safer distance on the loose dirt. "How're you feeling?"

"Like shit." He tries to take in his surroundings, blinking watery eyes. "What happened?"

"Cazadores. One flew up behind us before ED-E vaporized it. Little 'bot turned it to ash, but not before you were stung." Six touches a cold hand to his forehead before reaching in her pack, popping a can of purified water open. She helps him take a few swigs and he swishes the water in his mouth, spits out the first mouthful and swallows the rest eagerly. Until she pulls it away with a warning. "A little at a time, bud. You'll be sick all over, otherwise, and you already went through all our antivenom."

He's exhausted but lifts a brow anyway. "What?"

"You spit up the first batch and knocked two other bottles right outta my hands. Had to roll you up before you gave me a black eye," she chuckles, getting up and drifting over to the small pot he just noticed she had over the fire. She gives it a stir, the smell coming out of it even worse than the burnt bedroll. "But I'm making something just as good."

He closes his eyes, ready to fall into unconsciousness again. "What's that?"

"The way to end the _Mighty_ _Legate Lanius_." She says his name in a lower octave, mocking, but when he opens his eyes, hers are hard copper, like the pennies scavers still managed to find before they were melted. He watches as she dips her large combat knife into the pot, the viscous liquid gleaming before the venom hardens, coating the jagged blade.

He wakes several times during the long night to find her doing it over and over again until his dreams are of Six stabbing her many blades into the weak points of the Legate's heavy armor. It warms him even as he shivers as the poison leaves him.

* * *

 _12.31.2282_

The woman dies in the span of thirty-two seconds, one hand gripping the microphone of a recorder and the other at her throat, grasping feebly at the syringe in her neck. A large clock, some wooden prewar antiquity that sits in her office, ticks loudly while he keeps count subconsciously. Her body spasms and she cries out, raw and agonized as she sees him. It grates on him, on every single nerve ending.

Poison; it's a painful way to go and not Boone's preferred method. It was messy and long and it smacked of something far more personal than what he chooses to do.

Her eyes are dilated an indeterminate color as she convulses, and they remain frozen on his as he puts a bullet in her forehead, the suppressor muting the shot. It silences the strangled sounds escaping her and she soon grows still, slumping in her chair.

She was sitting at her desk when he found her, would have updated her ledger for another quarter-hour if left to her own devices. The window behind her is ajar and the house remains silent, the staff allowed to leave early to celebrate the New Year. She had included her personal guard in that decision, sparing them her fate. It would be commendable, had she known what he'd been hired to do here.

But it would seem his employer wasn't the only one with their sights on Anna Bishop. And something about this whole scene settles like rusted scrap within him, the edges jagged.

He pulls the syringe from her neck, spots the bruising beneath it. The area is large and the purple very dark, nearly black where the needle had been stuck deeply. More force than a quick prick had been behind it. He pockets his empty bullet casing but wraps the syringe with careful hands and hesitates only a moment more before ejecting the holotape from the recorder and taking it as well. Slipping out of the estate as silently as he had come in, he escapes through the hall and out the window.

The cooling night outside is as disgusting now as it was when he was a kid, the atmosphere of The Hub thick and unpleasant. A greasy film seems to lay on everything and its suffocating, his chest tight as the old memory strikes him almost physically.

Feeling eyes on him, he focuses on getting out without meeting anyone. He hugs the walls until he reaches the gate then picks up his stride. With some momentum, he pulls himself over the stone enclosure surrounding the property and drops down onto the other side, soundless in a darkened alley. He peers out, ears perked and then blends into the desolate streets of the Heights, heading towards the brightness a few blocks down to leave the residential area behind.

If the Wrights or the Mordinos were behind this, they wouldn't just be inviting Bishop retaliation. Whichever Family it was, they weren't afraid to step on the Van Graff's toes to get what they wanted. The Salvatores weren't even on his radar, their hold in New Reno nowhere near the strength of the other Families.

Unless the Bishops had angered the Underground? Anna Bishop was a Hub native, had married into the Bishop family in her teens. She was living in The Hub instead of Reno because the Bishops were divorced in all but name and paperwork. They had been for a few years already. Her death could have been ordered by someone that had nothing to do with Reno's power grab.

Music was bleeding in from Downtown and he reaches the main street, the lights blinding and welcome, raucous laughter and blaring music surrounding him. The song is feverish, something with horns and a tempo that begs for shaking hips and light feet.

Boone shrugs tense shoulders as he walks. The job had been the usual - a hit, no witnesses. His pristine record had nearly gotten ruined by Anna Bishop, aged 42, who died on New Year's Eve after being poisoned by an unknown. He had finished a job begun by someone else.

He ducks into a small bar on a side street and orders a scotch, contemplating its murky depths for a moment before he downs it and orders another. The caravan he had signed up with for his cover wasn't going to head out until tomorrow so he makes the best of his situation as his mind races.

* * *

It takes the water caravan four days to reach Junktown and when they do, Boone breaks away the first chance he gets. He heads to a tavern near the entrance, the sign hanging above so sun-bleached it's unreadable but for the faint cartoon of a pig in mud.

He wonders if he recognizes what it is only because he'd seen it over a decade and a half ago before it had become so faded.

Inside, he doesn't see the face he's seeking so he leaves a message at the bar before he heads to a table in the shadowed corner with his pack of cigarettes. He sits with his back to the wall as Nina Simone croons in the background.

"Whiskey. Two please."

The waitress rolls her eyes at him as she drops an ashtray on the table and leaves. If he's lucky, she'll bring him something that wasn't cut with turpentine.

The smell in Junktown is worse than The Hub, car grease and corroded metal hovering amongst the garbage and piss. But Boone remembers Junktown under slightly better circumstances than The Hub. Even the Boneyard ranks higher on his list with Dayglow at the very top.

Boone takes a deep drag of his cigarette and lets his mind wander to thoughts of rough hands burned with radiation and a grin that could blind with its brilliance. He's always wondered about Lupe, of her whereabouts since they left Dayglow behind. His reverie is interrupted when he hears an official announcement on the radio, names catching his attention.

" _\- official resignation. I repeat: today saw a shift in the Republic's military command, with President Kimball finally accepting General Lee Oliver's official resignation. The move has been a long time coming, many would say, as what has been termed 'Kimball's War' in the Mojave -"_

Heh. So House had been fucking right.

He's reaching for another cigarette when a shadow blocks his light, a bald man, built like a freight-train with a curving scar marring one side of his face staring down at him.

"Mike," Boone greets solemnly, lighting up and inhaling heavily. He gestures to the empty seat across from him.

But Mike doesn't sit. He continues glowering and it's enough to make a normal man sweat.

"You trying to call more attention to us?" Boone finally mutters, giving the older man a skeptical look.

Mike sits at this, slowly, as if the decision were all his. He doesn't take the drink Boone pushes to his side of the table and remains silent as he continues scowling.

He had always been a man of few words and Boone waits patiently as he sucks on his cigarette.

"You shouldn't abuse your lungs like that, kid."

Boone nearly chuckles, settles for a small huff of amusement as he stubs his cigarette out. "You sound like Beth."

Mike grunts but brings his glass of rotgut closer, doesn't sip yet. "I almost didn't recognize you."

Boone scratches at his chin hairs, weeks of being on the road giving way to a full beard by now. "Haven't been home in a while."

"It's not what I meant." Mike finally takes a drink, grimacing as it goes down. "We got your letter when you got married. But we didn't hear anything after that."

"Carla died," he says tonelessly and Mike's mouth tightens, turns down at the corners. Boone gives a brief shake of his head as he lifts his own glass. "It's been years already."

Mike continues studying him with eyes sharp enough to catch everything still. Boone guessed he was pushing sixty already, but being bald as he was it was hard to tell sometimes.

"Did you go see Beth already?"

"No."

Mike settles more comfortably into his seat. "Alright Craig, I'll bite. Why are you here? It's business if you came to me before your sister."

Boone is glad to get to the meat of this. "You know anything about poisons?"

"Not me personally, but someone." He frowns and there's an edge in his voice now. "What kind of trouble are you getting into?"

"Think you can find out what this one is?"

Boone hands him the wrapped syringe after a quick glance at his surroundings. No one here gave a shit, too busy in their own misery to look up from their drinks. He pauses as he notices one man missing an arm at the table to his left. He's wearing an old NCR uniform and when Boone takes a closer look, he sees that the ones parked at the bar are the same. NCR veterans all around.

Mike continues frowning but slips it into his pocket. "How do I get a hold of you if I find something out?"

"You don't." Boone stands, sets some caps on the table. "I'll come back. Are you still staying in the same place?"

"No. We're about a mile out of here."

"I'll find you, then."

"You should really see your sister."

Boone merely stares at him for a moment before he nods. But as he walks out of the tavern, he knows as well as Mike probably does that he didn't plan to.


	3. Chapter 2

"Sometimes too much drink is barely enough." - Mark Twain

* * *

When Craig turns nine, he and Bethany have been homeless for nearly three months. Their only saving grace is the sickness that wracks his thin frame with chills, and a wet cough that worsens as the day drags on.

He wheezes as they leave the ruins of an old diner behind with their rucksacks full of junk. The sun is three-quarters of the way gone and he hasn't complained yet. But every bit of dust they kick up makes his throat itch and his coughs won't let him catch his breath anymore. When he pukes after the next bout hits him and Beth yells at him, he knows why. Food is scarce and he'd just wasted half a can of Cram on the side of the road.

His fever dreams are of radscorpions that night, the heavy rattling in his chest haunting him. When he wakes, he's given something that coats his tongue before it knocks him out again, taking him back to the scorpions that continue to stalk him.

But he wakes up in a warm bed, so it's almost worth it. Especially when the Followers hand him food as soon as he feels up to it. Which is almost immediately in his state.

And Beth hugs him when she finds him awake, too. Really squeezes him, and the best part is it doesn't feel forced. She doesn't nearly smother him in her rough grip because she's trying to make up for something for once. Even if it is his birthday.

"That was two days ago, dumbass."

He grins at her response and continues scarfing down his Blamco before it gets cold and chewy. His stomach isn't eating itself and Beth is back to being his asshole sister. For now, all is right in his world again.

* * *

 _1.16.2283_

When he stirs he doesn't recognize where, but the sharp scent of abraxo and a tang of sour liquor wafts towards him. His eyelids burn in the faint light and when he opens them, he's stretched out on a lumpy mattress with a sloped roof overhead. An attic, by the looks of it.

Indoors this time, at least.

Boone roots around blindly for the bottle jabbing his kidney and lifts it up to the light to find the amber nearly gone. The lid is missing and he grimaces at the dampness on the back of his shirt and the mattress, the spilled liquor a fucking waste. His throat is parched, his mouth bitter tasting and the morning is frigid, making his sinuses sting. Rubbing gritty eyes, he sits up, letting out a cough that rattles his lungs.

Low voices are coming from downstairs and someone's left a dented bucket steaming with hot water next to the mattress along with a bar of soap and a threadbare towel. He attempts to get his bearings but last night is murky at best. Failing at that, he finally pulls the faded quilt off to wash up.

He takes the steps down the rickety stairwell carefully and spots the stuffed brahmin head mounted center stage above the bar, dozens of colored bottles shelved underneath it.

The Dry Canal Saloon in the outskirts of New Reno had been run by a shifty prospector who'd come across a wayward shipment of Jet on its way south to other NCR states. He'd gotten the idea to sell it alongside his watered down liquor, maybe grow some of his clientele in the process. Boone had put a stop to that pretty quickly. The Families were jealous guardians of all the vices Reno had to offer and they kept a tight rein on any and all drug business near the area.

When Boone had painted the wall with his brains, he'd found the deed to the bar on the man's person and sat on it for a good solid month before Joana finally convinced him to open the bar up again. No one had come to claim it during the time it was closed.

It was a good source of caps. He'd just never slept under its roof before.

Boone takes in the familiar eyesore and the recognizable face standing behind the counter and some of the previous night comes back to him, trickling in and absorbed like rainfall on cracked earth. He'd just gotten back last night.

Thoughts tumble in his stagnant mind; he hadn't quite failed his last job but had found his objective nearly dead before he was able to get to her. He didn't think the Van Graff's had leaked this job out to someone else. Why do that, when they had already paid him the first half upfront?

So his suspicions remained the same, a wide net with nothing new caught in it.

He settles on a stool as Joana finishes her conversation with the two people already tucking into their plates. The place is empty otherwise, the morning not bringing in many customers.

"Good morning sugar. I've got some lurk eggs with cactus and jalapenos on the menu. Let me plate some up for you."

She hadn't lost her Vegas veneer, setting a freshly poured beer in front of him with a smile. The ex-prostitute had left the Strip with Carlitos and ended up single and bartending in Reno, not six months after. _Win-win_ , she had remarked with a wink upon their first meeting, somehow recognizing him when she'd found him at the bar she worked in. Boone ran his operation just fine on his own but found himself back at that stool more and more as the months went on. She had become a good source of information when he was in town.

Boone shakes his head, takes a long swallow of the beer. It's grainy and thick enough fill his stomach. "Where's my pack?"

"I took out your clothes and they're drying out back. You sure you're not hungry? You didn't eat anything last night." Her eyes are questioning, but he drinks what he has in front of him before he pushes away from the bar with a muttered 'no'.

The plumbing was faulty this far from the city proper and there are outhouses instead of indoor toilets. He empties his bladder in one of them, mind drifting as the cold air does its job to wake him fully. Hanging on the line, his pants are still damp but the shirts are almost dry. He pulls off the one he's wearing and drops it in the washbasin, works on situating himself with the current day as he stares at the snow-capped mountains in the distance, still not used to the sight. He'd grown up too far south to see snow before.

"Boone?" Joana stops when she sees that he's still shirtless but doesn't turn away as he pulls a clean one on. "Look, I know you just got back from a job, but I have something that might interest you."

"Those two inside?"

"Yeah. They have an issue with their landlord. He's more of a slum lord, and they're being robbed every month, their building is falling apart-"

"How much?" he interrupts.

Joana fidgets. "Well, they just paid their rent so they're a bit short of your usual..."

"I don't work for free, Jo."

"I know. But if you hear them out-"

"They either have the caps or they don't." It was simple and it kept him out of these types of situations.

But Joana was starting to make his life as 'not simple' as possible since he brought her on board. "I'll take a cut in my pay-"

"It's not how this works."

"Why?" And she's angry now, eyes flashing. "Caps are caps, right? Doesn't matter where they come from."

"It does when I'm paying them out."

"They need help, Boone. I thought that's why you were doing this-"

"I'm not the law, Joana. Let the NCR handle their shit." He begins to feel a headache behind his eye sockets.

Her eyes narrow now, two bright spots of red on her cheeks but she says nothing for a minute. When she finally does, her tone is tight, "When I came to work for you, I thought you were doing this like the Courier -"

"Don't."

"- the way you both did when you were in Vegas. You helped people then. You two helped _me_ when I nearly died - when everyone else would have just written me off as some junkie on the way out. And now you're telling me that you're not going to help these families because they don't have the caps to pay for it?"

"Jackpot." He is calm to her growing temper, as unmoved as a brick chimney. He wants to shut the door on this conversation and any future of its kind. "You think no one got paid to do what we did back then? That _she_ did it out of the goodness of her heart?" He feels the bitterness in his stomach, the bile churning. "Didn't think prostitutes were this naive."

Her eyes are still bright but burning with something else now. He continues staring her down, waiting.

When she has no response, she turns and heads back inside.

He isn't surprised when she doesn't speak to him for the rest of the day.

* * *

Boone takes advantage of the empty morning to renew the wood stores that were running low. He really needed to hire someone to help at the saloon. Someone needed to replace the 'C' on the front sign. It was only funny until the customers started harassing Joana about it.

At some point, Joana breaks her silence long enough to remind him he needs to pay the feed guy if he doesn't want the Bighorners to go hungry through the rest of the winter. The two he originally started with would become three soon and they wouldn't make it on grazing alone outside that little shack he called a home by the foothills.

He finally locks himself in the tiny office in the back, reaches under the loose floorboards to get his cap stash and his scattered sheets of responsibility and begins dividing the caps into separate piles.

When he emerges, he lifts a hand before Joana can open her mouth and gestures at the neat piles on the table behind him.

"Instructions are there. So's an advance on your pay and some extra. Might not be back for a while." Or ever, but there's no need to voice it.

She nods quickly, expression worried but she doesn't say anything, for which he is relieved. He shoulders his rucksack and his weapons. Hangs around awkwardly as she gazes at him.

"Are you still seeing that guy you told me about? You should stay with him for a while. Maybe a few weeks." He hesitates but decides he needs to be honest if he wants her to listen. "Trouble might be following me."

She studies him, pursing her lips before she nods. "I'll keep things in order until you come back. Be safe."

Safe is the last thing on his mind. Prepared is more like it.

"Also, Boone? You might wanna shave if you're meeting with Tiaret. She's not a fan of facial hair."

He smirks, decides it's another way to tempt fate today.

* * *

The Gold Dust is in West Side, in what used to be Salvatore territory. The balance of power had shifted in New Reno, not just with the Families in the last few decades, but also with the NCR's tenuous hold on the territory. It was evident with the announcement he'd listened to in Junktown and all the dissatisfied citizens he'd heard since then. Kimball's popularity had eroded and was on a downhill slide. Oliver's resignation had only opened the floodgates.

He arrives at the casino, the bar humming with activity. He gives the bartender his name and the man signals towards the back, to a figure standing guard near a closed door. The muscle gestures for him to take a seat at the table nearby and a beer is set down in front of him without him having to ask.

Joana's comment comes to mind as Boone takes his first sip.

The Van Graff muscle was a kid still. Tall, sure – a strapping six-foot-five, but with a roundness about the jaw that spoke more to Boone than the sudden growth spurt did. He held his laser rifle with practiced ease, but his grip on the weapon was loose, relaxed. It made the sniper's fingers twitch and he was tempted to take it from him, the sloppiness needing immediate correction. But he didn't entertain the thought for long. He was probably a nephew if Boone were to guess, no doubt following in the Van Graff tradition of indoctrinating family into the growing business.

Or maybe a grandson, Boone corrects mentally, as the Van Graff matriarch makes her way across the dimly lit bar to his table near the back. He never approached their establishments unless they called him. If he wanted to drink, he did so at the small bars where getting kicked out wouldn't cost him future employment.

Tiaret was dressed is a set of leather armor that fit her well. She could put younger women to shame.

The image of a woman slowly turning purple with poison in her veins stutters across his mind and he takes another long swallow of his beer, pushing it back.

"Mr. Boone, how nice to see you in good spirits."

Boone's expression hasn't changed since he arrived, but he stands as he'd been taught. She doesn't sit, just curls a finger for him to follow as the boy opens the door to a back room.

She pours herself a drink from the decanter on one side of the lounge they enter and settles herself in a red chaise, the material looking almost whole except for a few cigarette burns he could spy from where he sits across from her.

The muscle remains behind him and Boone's not offered a drink, so he knows she's ready to get down to business.

"How many jobs would you say you've done for us?" Tiaret asks, offering him a cigarette from the little metal case she brings out.

"A dozen, now." He takes one, lights her up before he takes a puff, pretends he is completely at ease as his anticipation mounts. He's not sure what to expect here, had almost assumed he'd be escorted to Golgotha when he first stepped on Virgin Street.

"That's right... it started with that King on the Strip."

It had. He had left the Mojave and returned to the region four months after with Pacer in his sights. It had been a quick in and out, and even though he'd seen Cass near the King when he did it, he was sure she hadn't seen him.

"You have shown us loyalty. We appreciate that. Tiaret's dark eyes eat up his every detail and he feels like prey in her gaze. "We have another job for you."

Boone smokes idly, mostly as a means to have something to do with his hands. The less he says, the better. She hands over a folded sheet, one he doesn't look at yet.

"It's a fetch and retrieve job."

"I think I made it clear in the beginning. I don't do any slaving," he mutters but she laughs, a tinkling sound that is pleasant to the ears. He could see some of who she had been when she was younger in that mirth, in her expression.

"There is no slaving, I assure you. I just need you to bring my guests to me. I think you will be able to persuade them where no one else could." She takes a sip of her drink, continues smiling at him.

He finally looks at the paper.

 _Return to sender. Room and board in Westside._

 _Courier Six & Infant _

He frowns. "What infant?"

Tiaret's smile is venomous. "Hers, Mr. Boone."


	4. Chapter 3

_Oh, but you cannot safely say_  
 _While I will be away_  
 _That you will not consider, sadly_  
 _How you helped me to stray_

PDA, Interpol

* * *

It's not the first time she's disappeared on him, on them. The last time she had, she'd come back with that smoldering anger firmly on the surface. It had always burned within her, glimpses coming out when she was on a hunt. But since then it was front and center and it swayed her every decision, their days of lazing around the cocktail lounge a thing of the past.

He simmers silently. He had seen all the signs. But he had also said nothing. The Wasteland called to her again and when she finally went, she went alone.

She slips out after a bad fight with the scribe, one he's not meant to hear. But he can never get used to sleeping for more than a couple of hours at a time, even in the 38. Veronica can't stop grieving and Six... Six had completely shut down, cold and resolute. He recognized that animal in her even as he turned away from it in disgust.

She had been buried in her Pip-boy for days, the sound piece pressed against her ear with the volume low. When he'd looked in the cabinet for a can of pork 'n' beans, nearly half of them were missing. So were most of the tins of Cram. She tucked purified water in her pockets whenever she stopped in the kitchen - all supplies she usually made him carry.

But the biggest tell was when he found her at the workbench, replacing the scope of her sniper rifle.

Six was a fan of explosives and melee, loved to string trios of grenades into bouquets that resulted in her targets going airborne. Nephi's driver was her current melee of choice and he'd heard her yell 'fore!' more times than he could count before she made contact with her power swings. When she needed a sniper rifle, she took him with her. But not this time.

It's two weeks after she disappears that he finds her.

He's following an itch of his own, restless and looking for something other than Cassidy's booze or another game of cards with Raul to distract him. He's debating about stopping at the Atomic Wrangler for the evening when he spots ED-E. The eyebot is floating by the gates to Outer Vegas and he can't remember the last time he'd seen the bot since Six took off.

ED-E begins beeping as he approaches and Boone slows, coming to a stop by the door. Hands in his pockets, he contemplates the robot and his current boredom. When he nudges his head towards the gate and ED-E blips out what sounds like agreement, he moves.

The bot keeps pace with Boone's careful watch. But as they get closer to the New Vegas Clinic, ED-E's battle tune trills out just as he sees laser fire in the distance. He aims as he rushes towards them, picking the Fiends off quickly. ED-E keeps them back from a figure crouched near the ground, almost invisible in the twilight but for a curve of dark blue energy.

The Fiends are all dead and he's a dozen yards away when he recognizes her. She has to straighten for him to get a good look at her, the lights from the 38 distant but welcome.

The suit is dark and hugs her body,and when she crouches as he nears she almost disappears into the shadows of the clinic again. He is distracted by what it does and doesn't see the way she's coiled. Not until she lunges at him.

She knocks him back hard, his shades and beret knocked loose, the energy blade of her axe sizzling the skin of his throat as she holds it there, eyes burning with a manic light. He doesn't breath and feels his blood run cold as Six pants heavily above him, fear wild in her features.

ED-E is beeping above her and Boone says her name slowly as she blinks once, then once more. Heavy blinks, as if coming out of sedation. Her breathing becomes frantic as she scrambles back, dropping the axe in the process. It slices into the meat of his bicep like butter, and he moves away from it, the blood trickling sluggishly out of a clean, straight cut.

His throat burns white hot, but he isn't bleeding from there. He walks to Six, who had gotten on all fours and was gasping like she'd sprinted all the way back to them. He helps her up and leads her to the clinic, ED-E floating behind.

They remain there for the night, sleeping in separate rooms. He touches the bandage at his neck, the dressing light on the burn. Second degree, they said, and it would scar. Probably end up looking like rope burn. Assumptions would be made.

He's discharged the next day, and when she isn't, she's ready to walk out in her hospital gown if need be. She argues that she's hale and hearty but Doctor Usanagi was not cowed easily.

When the guards begin inching towards Six and Boone flicks the safety off his rifle, Usanagi finally caves in, giving the courier a grave look.

"You need medical attention."

Six sets a bag of caps on the counter and drops the stealth suit next to it, the suit making a small noise of disappointment Boone is sure he didn't imagine. "Thanks for the treatment, doc."

They walk out in silence and Boone feels compelled to loosen the ties to his leathers and give her something more to wear even as she bends to pick up her discarded axe. She shrugs the chest piece off, asking for the face wrap of his armor instead. She wraps it around her head and over her mouth, hiding the new scar that rounds her forehead, below the line of reddish-brown hair growing in curly snippets since it had been shaved in Goodsprings. He hadn't noticed it in all the chaos that had followed once he found her. He wants to ask, but the tight pull of her mouth and the dark set of her brows makes him hesitate.

She picks the lock and disarms the traps of a front door to an abandoned house before she waves them over, disappearing into the back room. He can't relax because she seems so on edge herself so he stands by the window, scoping their surroundings. ED-E floats by with only his fans making noise. Nothing threatening was on the perimeter.

When she emerges, she's dressed in a merchant outfit she found in the dresser, the skirt brushing her calves and the tops of her boots. She shoulders her axe and holsters a weirdly shaped gun he hadn't see until then. But she doesn't explain and they continue back to the Strip in silence.

It isn't until the reach the gates of the Strip that she finally speaks.

"Can we not tell anyone about this?" she pleads, her eyes dull even in the casino lights as she looks at him. "About the whole stop at the clinic?"

He nods carefully at her request and she returns it, already looking away. A few of the others were just exiting the Tops, Rex barking at the sight of the courier.

When they ask him later about his neck, he mentions laser fire caught him.

Boone wonders if they notice the way Six freezes for a tiny moment before she loosens up enough to return to the poker game Raul had roped her into.

* * *

 _1.25.2283_

If it wasn't winter, he would've braved the roads directly south from Reno to New Vegas on his own, but it was a slim chance he'd make it through with all his limbs intact. The shorter days made the nights almost unbearable and lean winters meant hungry predators.

The caravan is too slow for him to continue with, however, so he strikes off on his own after it arrives in the outskirts of NCR City. He sticks to the outer perimeter of the city, taking the long route around. His supplies should keep through to Junktown and he only stops in Junktown long enough to collect a note from Mike at the bar of the small tavern.

It mentions a finding with no specifics and an address, a small ranch outside the town proper. Boone reads it but continues south and then east without stopping by. His blood was running hot, and while he still needed half a bottle to force a full night of sleep, he was up before dawn each day, thirsty but jittery with pent up energy.

When Tiaret had brought out the collar with assurances that it was only for the safe transport of her guest, he had cut the meeting short by standing, taking the job but leaving the collar behind. He had made it as far as the door before a rifle had been pressed against his back and the collar pushed on him.

While he wasn't sure what he was planning, he followed instinct and kept walking. If he didn't find her, they would hire someone who would.

* * *

It takes two weeks to reach the Mojave Outpost from Reno and when he comes upon the hulking statues of the two rangers, he pauses in surprise.

The graffiti isn't new. He'd seen it when he had passed through months ago. But the two Rangers are broken down to their leg stumps by now, equipment still set aside. The job wasn't completed yet, by the looks of it. The highway toll booth had been re-established and all who passed had to show identification, an NCR stamp added for tariff purposes within the Free Economic Zone of New Vegas. But they kept no record of who passed through the booth, something the majority were in favor of.

The statues remain on his mind as he passes Primm and a few securitrons bundled near the correctional facility. He glances at it from a distance, spies the flashes of light and distant eruption of explosives coming from the interior, followed by the crack of cover fire.

He hurries past it, the memories shaken loose too vivid for him to process. The sight of the Strip lit up is hard on the eyes and he dons his patrolman sunglasses almost immediately.

He doesn't resist the lure of a whiskey bottle when he settles in the Casa Madrid Apartments that first evening, getting down to the clear bottom before he passes out.

But the nightmares are festering this close to ground zero and he jerks awake after midnight, sweating and shaking. And running on empty, he finds, searching through his pack in the stuffy room.

He lays on his back, trying to find sleep again but his head spins when he closes his eyes and all he can hear is business booming in some of the other rooms. The moans and knocking bed frames make his jaw clench and he tries to block it out even as he feels a telltale twitch in his pants.

He stumbles out of his room, on the hunt for an additional sleep aid.

"You planning on going to Klamath's?" Pretty Sarah asks as he opens the front door to cool night air. "He's closed. Had a family emergency."

Boone lets out an annoyed breath through his nose. He could walk, he supposes, but that would only serve in waking him up further.

"You sure you don't want some company? Might work wonders for your night. Our most popular girl is just finishing up."

He turns to Pretty Sarah, frowning but is distracted by the door that opens out of the corner of his eye. A client walks out, his back to Boone as he continues facing the woman that leans against the door jam, running fingers through her chestnut hair, the cut short and framing a heart shaped face.

The smile on the woman is too full, missing the crooked curve on one side, and the eyes are too light to be hers, but for a minute there...

His blood is loud in his ears as the front entrance closes behind the other man. Even the gust of cold air is not enough to pull him from the sight. She's running a finger on the hem of the open flap of her short robe, legs long and lean.

"Why don't you take our Wasteland Protector for a spin?"

The prostitute that looked so much like the courier turns her smirk on him and he's suddenly reminded that his cock is still awake, at half mast at the sight as she opens her robe a bit more, the skin beneath dark and smooth in the faint light. They had gotten some of the details right.

He hesitates, aware that this could go very badly for him. He would have to face her soon and he now has questions he didn't think he ever would, thoughts that had never crossed his mind now surfacing through his lowered inhibitions.

When the woman before him reaches out, he flinches at his body's reaction. But he doesn't stop his forward momentum when she pulls him in.

* * *

AN: I don't have a beta, so con-crit is welcome. Just don't completely tear me to pieces, is all I ask. :D


End file.
